Hi Folks,

New member and first time Vette owner, and it's about damn time.

I just bought a pristine 1980 L48 with very low miles that included every scrap of documentation. On the window sticker the interior color is noted as AUU2, which I know is common for light beige.

My car is a one owner car with no mods at all, but the interior is actually two tone....beige and a sort of more yellow tone. It looks very deliberate and I'm 99% sure that it's original. It looks great in fact, but I havent seen or heard of this before.

Could it be fading or color change in some of the leather parts and not others or is this some oddball thing that's rarely discussed?

Thanks in advance.

 

Congrats on the new car , I also have an 80 , frost beige exterior and Doeskin interior , yes some stuff fades , my steering wheel is leather and is faded , normal if your car is in the sun alot! Ron

 

Thanks Ron....I'm excited about it. It's been a very long wait.

I know what you mean. My steering wheel and horn button have faded a lot too. I was referring more to the seats. The center is one color and the sides or bolsters are a different color. It looks like 2 tone interior.

The guy I bought it from told me that the "2" in AUU2 stood for 2 tone, but I knew that was incorrect.

This was a garaged car, so it's hard to attribute it to sun fading. It's also very even and the boundaries where one color starts and the other ends are very defined.

I dunno, but I like the car...I know that.

 

Do you have the cloth seats? The cloth inserts with vinyl skirts can sometimes look like different colors. The leather covers should look like one color. Post a pic of what you have.

Beige carpet can be of a slightly different color than seats and dash.

 

If memory serves me on my original 80 seats, the seats weren't all leather. The bolsters were vinyl and the middles were leather, or vice versa, i have not seen these seats in a long time since they are in the attic. That could explain the color difference.

 

AUU2 was not the trim or order number assigned to the Doeskin Beige interior (Doeskin being the GM name for the beige interior) used in 1980. The trim code assigned to Doeskin was 592 for leather and 59C for cloth. My guess is that your window sticker reads "592 AUU2 Doeskin Beige Leather interior", or something similar. The AUU2 are interior codes, the "A" usually refers to interior options or equipment (such as AU3, which is power door locks). The "2" may refer to the leather here too, and the "UU" probably does indicate the beige, too. The window sticker from my 81 shows the interior color in a similar fashion, it reads "132 ALL2 Sliver-Grey Leather Interior".

When new, for the most part, the 80 doeskin beige interior was all the same color beige, though it was possible that there would be a slight difference in the shade of some different types of materials. The only real difference was with the cloth seats. Where as the leather seats were all the same color, the cloth seat's inserts did tend to be a bit darker in color than the rest of the interior. This was true of the cloth inserts in the upper door panels, too.

I won't say that fading isn't possible, but even on cars stored outside, fading usually is somewhat uniform. Leather seats were actually made of 2 materials. The side bolsters were vinyl with the pleated center section, the only part of the seat that was leather. It's possible that the leather and vinyl have faded or aged differently, but I can't say I've seen that before. The most common areas to see sun fading are the carpet in the rear storage area and the tops of the doors. The door armrests do tend to darken with age, regardless of exposure to the sun, though.

Other than the carpet color oyster interiors, interiors were uniform through out for 1980. After the 82 Collector Editions came out with the contrasting seat bolsters and inserts, it became quite popular for people to have their seats done in contrasting colors. It's not impossible that this was done, even on an otherwise very original car.

Posting a couple pictures of your interior might help shed some light on what you have.

 

Hmmm,

I think the leather/vinyl suggestion is the ticket.

The door handles are quite a bit darker as well.

There is little evidence of fading carpet in the "cargo" area, so I guess the leather and vinyl parts aged and colored differently regardless of the light conditions. Sometimes objects will change like this just from exposure to the air over time. The seat belts are quite light in color in comparison to everything else too.

Anyway, I'm diggin' the car as much as I thought I would all these years. It's just going to be a bummer to mothball it for the winter this Sunday.

It better be nice out Saturday.

Thanks guys.

 

Mine originally came with vinyl skirts and cloth center , I installed a new complete interior last year from Wilcox and went 100% leather , so if it fades it will fade all the same , you can't get the cloth insert type seat anymore , cause I wanted to keep it all original . Same with the door panels , I had cloth on mine and had to settle with the vinyl. But it looks good! Enjoy your ride!!! Ron